


sugar

by caseyvalhalla



Series: skyline [1]
Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Game Spoilers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 18:01:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5507480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caseyvalhalla/pseuds/caseyvalhalla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You don't walk directly into a trap unless you intend to be caught.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sugar

**Author's Note:**

> *offers up zelloyd fic to the gods* Plz accept this humble fanfiction and smite the Namco America localization team okay. Thank.
> 
> (Title and quote reference the song Sugar by Tori Amos)

> _don't say morning's come_  
>  _don't say it's up to me_  
>  _if I could take twenty-five minutes_  
>  _out of the record books_

 

It wasn’t the grand romantic suite on the fifth floor of the Altamira hotel but it still had an open-air balcony overlooking the sea, with bits of gauzy curtains that didn’t cover much stirring around the edges as the ocean breeze drifted in and out of the room.  And it was south-facing, so the morning sunlight was suitably bright and pleasantly warm when Lloyd walked out into it, stretching both arms over his head and then folding them over the brown cowlick of his hair, staring at the horizon until his eyes felt like they might stay open.

He yawned hugely, and plopped down on the balcony floor, cross-legged with a whittling knife in one hand and a bit of fresh-smelling cedar in the other.  The lump of humanity still in the queen-sized bed behind him wouldn’t stir for at least another hour, probably more, and he wasn’t sure where in the hotel the others had ended up.  With nothing pressing on their agenda today and a late night behind them, he didn’t expect to hear a knock—or perhaps a casual yell from another balcony if Colette’s super-senses zeroed in on him—for a good while yet.

It was possible that more time passed than he noticed, focused as he was on the wood figure taking shape under his fingers.  He was thinking about trees and cabins built with cedar bark still clinging to the logs, a warm furnace, the smell of wood smoke and hot metal.  The groan that rose up behind him was unexpected, too soon by his calculations, although when he looked up from the wood figure he couldn’t say how long he’d been sitting there, legs growing stiff, shoulders warming to a hot tingle under the sun.

The groan came from somewhere in the pile of blankets, and Lloyd twisted around in response just in time to see Zelos emerge from it, primarily a mass of unkempt curly red hair until he pushed the bulk of it off his face and mumbled, “What time is it?”

Lloyd gestured with his bare wrist--bare entire upper body actually, which should have been obvious--but Zelos was hardly paying attention to him, bleary eyes narrow and suspicious, scanning the room like he expected one of the Papal Knights to pop out from behind the furniture and attack.  Lloyd shrugged, straightening and returning his attention to the carving.  “I dunno, about ten probably.”

“Why am I awake at this ungodly hour.”

It was a question phrased as a disgustedly flat statement, and since Zelos couldn’t see it, Lloyd didn’t bother smothering a smile; he gave an exaggerated shrug in response.  “Most people who have things to do with their lives are awake by ten AM.”

“I have plenty of things to do with my life,” Zelos protested, voice pitching into a whine that promised he had a lot more to say on this subject, whether Lloyd cared to hear it or not, and only paused due to some telltale shuffling around the bed.  “Very important things.  With important people.  And beautiful women.”

Lloyd hummed in something like a sarcastic _oh really you don’t say please tell me more_ tone and tugged carefully at the knife with his thumb.

“Furthermore it is perfectly acceptable for someone of my pedigree to sleep through the morning after partying hard late into the night.”  His voice grew steadily closer, looming along with the shadow that fell over him.  “I’m sitting, don’t cut yourself.”

Lloyd held both hands apart as the shadow disappeared along with a hiss, and then roughly half of Zelos’s weight flopped ungracefully against his back.  Lloyd was growing used to the gesture, though, and the way his chin dug into his shoulder, the flowery shower smell that clung to his hair.  The weight and warmth of his body.

“You didn’t party _that_ hard,” Lloyd said, once Zelos was settled with both arms wrapped around his waist.  “You had exactly two cocktails; I was there.”

“Were you?” Zelos asked as though he were seriously pondering the possibility, and also didn’t expect an answer, as evidenced by the breath that hit Lloyd’s neck immediately after, followed by a rather cold nose and an abrupt change in subject.  “What are you making?”

“It’s not for you.”

Zelos made a dramatically disappointed noise that tickled the fine hairs on the back of Lloyd’s neck, and the nose was replaced by warm lips.  A few gentle presses, in succession, traveling dangerously close to his ear.

Lloyd snorted.  “So since it’s not for you, you’re gonna distract me from it?”

“Paying attention to me is better.”

“Wait your turn.”  Lloyd shivered involuntarily when the next kiss was higher, harder and a little damp.  “Seriously, aren’t you the Chosen?  Didn’t the church teach you that patience is a virtue?”

“We can’t all be pure and honest like Colette,” Zelos grumbled against his earlobe, but retreated anyway, and paused with enough weight that Lloyd could tell he was looking over his shoulder at the figure forming in his hands.

It was a few more minutes before he spoke, curling closer against Lloyd’s back, knees bumping against his hip, so that he felt the vibration of words as much as heard them.  “Is that Corrine?”

“Yeah.”  Lloyd brushed some wood flakes off the surface of the three-tailed fox, carefully drawing the knife point along the inside of one ear.  “I’ve been working on it since the Temple of Lightning.  I’m not sure how a memorial to a summon spirit ought to work, but I figured this was a good start.”

Another long, unexpected silence passed, punctuated by the steady feeling of breath hitting his shoulder and a heartbeat against his back.  Lloyd had commented once that it was unlike Zelos to brood, and it was, but he still had no idea what was going through Zelos’s mind at moments like this.  What did he feel?  What did he worry about?  It was all so buried under pretense and conspicuously loud personality that Lloyd couldn’t tell, but increasingly found that he wanted to know.  He could see through the posturing, but what lay beyond that was blurry and indistinct.

“It’s a good likeness,” Zelos said abruptly, one hand moving from Lloyd’s waist to hover over the figure, waiting for Lloyd to stop carving before touching.  “You’ll make Sheena cry.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment.”

“It is.”  Zelos traced one finger over the fox’s nose, then down the crook of Lloyd’s index finger to his palm, around the fleshy curve between there and his thumb, documenting the calluses on his skin from woodwork and metalwork and the hilt of his sword.  Zelos’s were similar, unexpectedly rough when he’d first stripped off his gloves and ran his bare fingers through Lloyd’s hair and down over his cheeks--was it just a few days ago?  A week?  It felt like longer.  The passage of time seemed infinite, like everything that happened before the oracle in Iselia was from another life, in another dimension.  In a way, it kind of was.

The touch eventually trailed off of his wrist with a low hum that vibrated through his back, a last kiss at the junction of his neck and shoulder and Zelos murmuring, “I’m gonna make some coffee.”

And that was it, Lloyd thought, feeling suddenly cold even though the sun was still heating rapidly on his shoulders.  He twisted again to see Zelos plodding away, yawning, tugging the bedsheet he’d dragged with him over his shoulders.  That was it—the trouble with Zelos, clingy and distant at the same time, sometimes in the same breath.  Easy to see—and if there was one thing Lloyd was reasonably decent at, even by Raine’s standards, it was observing things—but not so easy to decipher.  It was unfair that he had a proclivity for one of these things and not the other.

Lloyd didn’t hear the hotel room’s small complimentary coffee pot perking, but he could smell it, eventually, and gave up whittling for the day in favor of caffeine and possibly breakfast, if he could manage to drag Zelos out of the room long enough to find some.  Not likely, he figured, stretching his legs and ducking back inside to find his roommate back in bed, two coffee cups neglected and steaming on the countertop.

He stashed the carving and knife back in his own pack by the door and sat heavily on the bed, against Zelos’s back, leaning over his waist with one arm in a futile attempt to peer past the heavy drape of his hair.  “Don’t go back to sleep.”

“I’m not,” was the reply, followed by arms darting out from under the sheet to wrap around him and drag him bodily over Zelos’s hip and down onto the mattress.

Lloyd landed with a muffled _oof_ , squirmed to right himself and came nose-to-nose with Zelos, his narrow blue eyes, and his smug grin, close enough he could see the dust of freckles across his cheeks.

“It was a trap.  You’re mine now, Lloyd Irving.”

“Oh no,” Lloyd said without enthusiasm.

“That’s not correct.  You’re supposed to say, Oh my!  I’ve been captured by the great and beautiful Zelos!  However will I escape?  Perhaps if I placate him with my body, I can vie for my freedom.”

“I’m not going to say that.”

“Stingy,” Zelos muttered, rubbing his nose aggressively against Lloyd’s before tilting his head to nuzzle along his jaw.  “At least play along.”

Lloyd tolerated the butterfly kisses dropped on his chin, then the warmer one on his lips, slow and tingling and just a bit damp where their mouths overlapped, Zelos’s fingers tracing over his neck and combing through the short hairs on the back of his head.  Tolerated it, for probably a full minute, before pulling back.  “Are you gonna tell me what’s bothering you?”

“Hmm?”  Zelos was already moving on, lips trailing down his neck.  “Nothing’s bothering me.”

Lloyd counted to ten and staunchly suppressed the shiver that wanted to run up his spine when Zelos’s teeth scraped against the hollow of his throat.  It was like this that first night, too, a week ago or however long it was—the day the party barely dragged themselves through the gates of Flanoir by nightfall after a grueling trip through the Temple of Ice, chilled to the bone, packing the last remaining rooms at the inn.  Zelos had been uncharacteristically quiet the entire trip, trailing after Lloyd like a lost child by the time they stumbled into the tiny room and immediately huddled on the floor by the wood stove, wrapped in blankets.

Lloyd had asked the same thing, then, too cold and tired to banter or pretend he was annoyed by Zelos invading his personal space.  Not really surprised at all when Zelos said something noncommittal that he couldn’t quite remember now, something like _aw, are you worried about me, honey?_ with a wry half-smile, quickly blacked out by the fingers tugging on his chin, the cold chapped lips seeking out warmth against his own.

A week or however long later and Lloyd still wasn’t sure why he hadn’t realized he was attracted to Zelos until that precise moment—still wasn’t sure, in fact, if attraction was even the right word for whatever was happening with them.  If sex was the right word for what they did together, when it mostly involved kissing and groping and rutting without ever undressing completely.  Under the sheet Zelos was only stripped down to his undershirt and boxers, the closest to naked Lloyd had seen to date regardless of how many times he’d gotten his hands underneath the clingy fabric.

It wasn’t like Lloyd was in any position to say what this sort of relationship was supposed to be like, or was supposed to be called.  What he knew was that he liked it, and wanted it to continue, and he was a simple enough guy to be satisfied with that without needing a definition.

What he’d like, though, was to know what Zelos thought.  So after counting to ten, Lloyd dug his hands into that thick mane of hair, tugging gently until Zelos looked up at him, eyes narrowing.

“You think I’m lying?”

“I think you’re trying to change the subject.”

“The only thing I’m _trying_ to do is make out with you.”

“Same thing.”

Zelos scoffed, with great disdain and long-suffering, releasing Lloyd and rolling onto his back.  “Fine.  You’re no fun.”

He climbed out of bed, leaving his bedsheet-wrap to tumble halfway onto the floor, and padded around barefoot to the counter with the coffee pot and various other accoutrements, assembled over a case of some sort that Zelos had referred to as a “mini-bar.”  Lloyd suspected it was yet another advancement in technology that he wasn’t up to speed on, and secretly wondered if it actually housed a tiny bartender who mixed miniature cocktails.

Lloyd sat up and tucked his legs back under him, watching Zelos’s progress around the room and then the slow, careful doctoring of his mug of coffee to whatever standards he held, involving precise amounts of sugar and cream.  He tilted his head slightly, wondering how wise it was to continue pursuing this, too stubborn to do anything else.  “Is it because we’re almost done breaking the seals?”

Zelos paused notably and Lloyd continued, possibly more out of pride that he’d guessed right and might actually be on track towards deciphering Zelos’s thought processes.  “There are only two left now.  Are you worried about what’ll happen when the worlds split apart?”

“You know,” Zelos said with profound patience and turned sideways just enough to look at Lloyd, deliberately licking the spoon he’d been using to stir his coffee clean before responding, “as charming as your lack of experience can be, I might have to ruin your innocence a little for the sake of filling you in.”  He took a sip of coffee from the mug, again with slow deliberation, before elaborating.  “The beauty of this sort of thing,” he gestured vaguely between the two of them to illustrate, “is that you don’t need to talk about it.”

Lloyd blinked.  “What sort of thing?”

“This,” he gestured again, growing more agitated the longer Lloyd stared at him, waiting for an explanation.  “Casual.  Natural.  The meeting of two consenting adults for moments of intimacy behind closed doors that don’t have to mean anything.   _This_.”  Zelos whirled his free hand in a circle as though that would better illustrate his point, face pinching in frustration.  “This is the sort of thing you don’t have to talk about!”

“I’m fine with not talking about it,” Lloyd said, still blinking, still not sure what point Zelos was trying to make.  “But I’m not fine with not knowing how you feel about it.   _This_.  Whatever you mean by that.”

“That’s exactly what I mean when I say we don’t have to talk about it!”

“Oh.”  Lloyd paused, letting the wheels of his own mind turn for a few heartbeats.  “In that case, I’m not fine with it.”

Zelos uttered some kind of curse under his breath and rubbed his free hand over his face, turning back towards the counter, but Lloyd thought for a moment his expression looked less like frustration at Lloyd and his stubborn insistence, and more like desperation.  Something wide and frightened in his eyes, like a trapped animal, or a man caught in some act of betrayal.

It was just a bare instant, though, vanished by the time he turned around with Lloyd’s mug in hand, passing it across the bed with a look of exhaustion and long-suffering.  “Fine.  You got me.  I’m worried about the worlds splitting apart and being separated from you, blah blah blah feelings.  Are you satisfied, or should I talk about the miseries of my childhood, too?”

Lloyd took the mug with a blank expression, not sure whether to take that confession as the half-truth it clearly was or keep pushing, find whatever Zelos was shielding with it, whatever had caused that brief, desperate glance.  He sipped idly at the mug in his hands; discovered that the coffee in it was made exactly the way he liked it, with just a little sugar.

And that was what made him pause—a gesture too thoughtful to mesh with Zelos’s flippant attitude.  A kind of subtext, a counterpoint to the entire conversation.

Lloyd took another drink in lieu of saying anything further, not moving when Zelos circled the bed again and sat against the headboard opposite him, coffee on the nightstand, knees pulled up defensively in front of him.  At length, without turning around, he offered, “You could always stay in Sylvarant, if you wanted.”

Zelos chuckled derisively.  “I think I said before, I doubt your healthy, low-tech lifestyle would suit me.”

“You might be surprised.”

“Maybe.  I suppose, on the plus side, I wouldn’t have to be the Chosen of Mana anymore, and that’s something.”  He paused, and it was heavy, voice pitching low.  “That _would_ be something, wouldn’t it?”

Lloyd twisted his head around, peering over his shoulder; Zelos was hunched over his knees, hair slipping off his back and down against his elbow a bit at a time.  “What’s that?”

“I said I’ll consider it.”

Lloyd hummed and unfolded his legs, leaned over to put his mug on the nightstand next to Zelos’s.  Kept leaning until he was wriggling past Zelos’s knees and pushing his hair back with both hands.  Ducking his head to steal a kiss.

Zelos scoffed delicately, offended.  “Oh _now_ you wanna make out.”

“Mm, now I have to convince you.”

“Ehh, I dunno, now I feel a… what was it?  A sudden violent urge to abandon you.”

Lloyd didn’t take him seriously, since both his arms were wrapping snugly around his waist, tugging him closer, breath puffing warm against his lips.  “Too bad this is a trap.”

“Oh, honey, you have no idea.”

Lloyd meant to ask what he meant by that—he did, but forgot about it in the midst of Zelos’s mouth and tongue and the fingers trailing over his bare skin.  Maybe it was just a flirtation, a bit of banter to heighten the mood, an attempt to get the upper hand, and Lloyd’s mind simply dismissed it.

(But it was, in fact, a trap, and both of them were caught.)


End file.
